


In the gloaming

by GreenPhoenix



Series: Gloaming [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/F, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 03:11:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18437822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenPhoenix/pseuds/GreenPhoenix
Summary: Willow knows her way in the dark, and Annabelle is there for her. A strange case haunts her, and is not all it seems.





	In the gloaming

She knows her way through the dark woods by scent. It’s easy to follow the trees that give off a mossy scent and the animals’ scents are easy to catch.  
Willow follows her nightly route, and then goes to find her dogs where she left them. Winston has caught a hare, and she pets him.  
This is like her job where she follows her empathy into the dark and emerges with knowledge of what happened to the bodies she’s shown.  
How they follow her into her nightmares is another matter.  
The woods are lovely despite this. 

*  
She works a full day, and then goes to see her psychiatrist. Annabelle Lecter always has answers to her questions. “You are unique,” Annabelle once said. “You are like me, but in a hue of delicious night.”  
Willow speaks of her case, another woman made up to resemble a doll.  
The killer must be a man, or is he?

*  
“Who is the killer?” asks Jack Crawford.  
“A man who thinks he can control women. In death he can make them what they couldn’t be to him in life. Pliant, pretty, needy.”  
“He’s changing them?”  
“Yes.”  
“You need to find him, Willow.”  
“I am trying. The team is working on it.”  
“Work harder,” says Jack.  
Willow knows Lounds is at her heels too.

*  
Annabelle comes over with soup when she has a cold. She is wearing an evening dress indicating she has just left a fancy party to rush to Willow’s side.  
It’s chicken soup but fancy of course.  
Annabelle would kiss her but for the fear of catching her cold.  
“You need to rest,” says Annabelle, her cheekbones standing out in the dim light, her pretty face a trembling skull.  
“I can’t. He will kill again, “ says Willow.  
“It’s not just on you.”  
“I’d kiss you..but.”  
“I know. “  
She eats and Annabelle’s dark eyes follow her, and then she rests, her head in Annabelle’s lap.  
Annabelle’s hand strokes her hair and that’s how she falls asleep.  
She wakes to find that Annabelle has carried her to the bed, and is lying next to her, still wearing her fancy gown.  
Willow reluctantly gets up to leave, and writes a note for her lover to find. 

 

*  
Annabelle massages her gently when she comes over later.  
“I’m sorry I had to leave after all the trouble you went to. You even left a party for me.”  
“It was all shallow gossip and silly gooses anyway. You matter to me.”  
“I would kiss you..” Willow says.  
“I know. I can ease your suffering in other ways, I always can.”  
“True. “  
“In sickness..”  
“Are you proposing doctor?” Willow asks.  
“Later. When you are well.”  
Willow falls asleep again.

*  
Willow had met Annabelle when she was suffering from hallucinations and sleepwalking. She thought she was going insane, but Annabelle proved she was not and had doctor Sutcliffe examine her. Willow got treatment for her disease and a friend for life in Annabelle. Annabelle was not scared of her dark fancies, but seemed enraptured with them, encouraged all of Willow’s strange desires without question. She also fed her and her dogs.  
Willow fell into her bed and was enthralled by Annabelle’s lips and her sensuous lovemaking. Willow had never felt so alive as when Annabelle claimed her for the first time with her hands and lips, eagerly touching Willow’s soft breasts and swirling her tongue around the hardened nipples.  
Willow cried out like a forest bird finding its song for the first time.

*  
There is another death and this was someone Willow knew. Miriam Lass was found with her lips rouged and her arms outstretched, missing her heart. Willow weeps since she had once loved Miriam. The broken body was hers, and her eyes were cold and blue.  
Willow could not see this being the same killer, since he never took trophies. It could be a copycat.  
When she gets for home she finds a parcel. There is a note inside that says “For you”. It was Miriam’s heart.  
Willow keeps Winston from sniffing at it and then cries.

*  
Much later she goes to see Annabelle again.  
“I told you about her,” she says.  
“Yes. I told you about Bedelia.”  
“I love you more than I ever did her,” says Willow.  
“The same is true for me and you. “  
“I think this killer is different. He..knows me,” says Willow fearfully.  
“I see. What makes you say that?”  
“The heart. It was a courting gift. Maybe it’s not even a male killer.”  
“Women can be cruel.”  
“Yes. We can. This one..loves me.”  
“Does the other killer love you?”  
“No. I doubt it.”  
“Who would not love you? You are a nymph in the forest, a Diana of the hunt.”  
“I would not kill anyone who saw me naked,” says Willow.  
“That’s good for me.”  
“Yes.”  
“Shall we eat?”  
“Yes,” says Willow.  
“You will find him,” says Annabelle as she goes into her kitchen, a domestic goddess like Hestia or Nigella Lawson.

*  
In the end they find him because he got sloppy and left prints all over a timid shopkeeper arranged as a doll. Beverly is the one to shoot the man in his home. His name is Harvey Wall. They don’t think he killed Miriam, and so that killer is still free.  
The dollman denies having killed her, and there’s no evidence to tie him to her death. Beverly comforts Willow and tells her they will find the copycat.  
Willow knows so.

*  
Willow seeks comfort in the arms of her lover. She accepts her proposal and so they are engaged.  
Willow knows her way through the dark, and there she is no longer alone. Maybe she never was.

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know..maybe I'll write about Willow finding out the truth.


End file.
